Spectral analysis might not really be your thing, but nonprofit science network Public Lab thinks it should be. Formed to provide a community for citizen scientists who want to monitor the health and quality of their surroundings, Public Lab launched today a crowdfunded challenge to create methods and equipment for an inexpensive, open source spectrometer.

“The reason that we started doing this … was in regard to pollution” says Jeff Warren, research director and co-founder of Public Lab. “The challenge is really to inspire people to look at that problem — that really big, pressing issue — that there are these contaminants in our immediate surroundings.”

Public Lab found its raison d’être after the Deepwater Horizon disaster, and started using spectrometers as a way to analyze water samples based on how light passes through them. Most people live in places where they’re exposed to contaminants, reasoned Warren. Shouldn’t they be able to measure what’s out there? As spectrometers are typically expensive and difficult to use, last summer they created a simpler one and offered it on Kickstarter, to resounding success. But that was just a piece of hardware. “You want people to use it, but you also want people to get involved in improving it,” says Warren. To really see what a spectrometer can do, Public Lab has to enlist the maker community.

“People open it, they build it, they calibrate it, and then they say, ‘well, what do I do now?'” he says. “There’s a big difference between having a reasonably good device and having a test, which anyone can perform.”

Public Lab’s countertop spectrometer, which raised $110,000 on Kickstarter and is now shipping. Photo: Courtesy of Public Lab

They’re looking to find diverse designs, but also diverse uses, from analyzing wine and beer to tracking pollution, and describing the techniques is part of the project. Ever since the Kickstarter, Warren has noticed increasing community interest and momentum. With this contest, he thinks Public Lab will be able to leverage that into a common cause for hackers in need of something to apply themselves to.

And the prize is yet to be determined. Anyone who feels the contest is a valuable endeavor is invited to donate, and Warren expects the prize to grow throughout the duration of the contest, which is open-ended. That is, it could be years before Public Labs decides someone has nailed it. (However, a first stage of the contest offers a $1,000 prize for a better-defined goal of documenting a technique to improve open source spectroscopy.)

“It’s kind of another take on the kind of momentum, and feeling of being part of something that you get when you back a Kickstarter project,” says Warren. “Except more than ever, everyone’s getting involved and actually doing it, not just funding it.”